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It’s time to open your eyes and smell the coffee on how connected our senses are.

A new Canadian study has found igniting the brain’s visual cortex with a small electrical charge can improve a person’s sense of smell.

Published in the Journal of Neuroscience by researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital — known as the The Neuro — and the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, the work may rewrite our understanding of how our senses are wired together.

Lead investigator Dr. Christopher Pack of The Neuro said they wanted to learn how someone gets a coherent picture of the world based on all senses processing information.

In particular, they wanted to know if activating a region of the brain primarily dedicated to one sense — such as sight — might have an impact on other senses.

They found electrically stimulating the visual cortex improved a person’s ability to identify an odd odour.

This cross wiring shows how, on a basic level, our senses are more interconnected than previously thought.

And it could, one day, lead to a better way to help those suffering from brain damage and impairment to their senses.

"On the other hand, the improvements are small, and we don’t know how long they last," Pack tells QMI Agency in an e-mail exchange.

"It may be minutes or hours, but if we could extend the duration for longer, there may be some clinical relevance. This is something we’re currently exploring."

Johan Lundstrom, a collaborator on the research from the Monell Chemical Senses Center, adds it’s not surprising how interconnected our senses are.

"What is surprising, however, is how early in processing the connections are made," he points out in an e-mail, adding it’s a demonstration of how sensory organs have developed to aid one another.